Webb Simpson won last Sunday's U.S. Open with little fanfare.
What did he do differently than everyone else?
The answer is simple - coming from almost nowhere, he managed to make fewer miscues than everyone else in contention during a horribly difficult week at the Olympic Club in San Francisco. He put shots close to the pin and holed big putts when he needed to and the result was a nice, if somewhat uninspiring, victory.
For at least a few weeks, Simpson, a likeable 26-year-old Wake Forest graduate with three tour wins, will bask in the glow of being the Open champion. After that, he'll likely be forgotten by most golf fans and the media, which is a sad commentary on where pro golf is right now.
The "sexier" stories, of course, involve why Tiger Woods totally disappeared over the weekend after leading or sharing the lead the first two days of the event or why Phil Mickelson played like his clubs stayed in the trunk of his Lexus as he limped to a lackluster 16 over par.
Jim Furyk, the fading 42-year-old former Open champ (who I was really rooting for), just couldn't hold it together the last two holes and fell out of contention with poor decisions and horrific shotmaking. Ernie Els, also 42, made a little run as well, but was out of it by the 17th hole, as was another veteran, David Toms, who also held the lead at one point.
Even the young guns, such as Rory McIlroy, supposedly golf's next big superstar, were nowhere to be seen. McIlroy stumbled so badly he didn't even sniff the weekend. Ricky Fowler was equally abysmal. Others, like Masters champ Bubba Watson, never made it to the weekend.
The Lake Course at Olympic is a little over 7,000 yards, but it's a golf wasteland with potential disaster from tee to green. The USGA loves calling these "hallowed" layouts a "true test of golf," but for fans who attended the tournament and those watching at home, it was agonizing at times.
Look, I understand both the PGA and USGA want to make things challenging for the best players in the world, especially at the majors, but seeing good shots that land by the pin roll off the back of a sloped green or seeing great players almost break their wrists and clubs hitting a shot from 8-inch deep rough just isn't that enjoyable to watch.
Seeing a player win a major championship at 22-under-par isn't realistic either, but there has to be a happy medium as far as course conditions that the powers that be can come up with that will allow these guys to showcase their abilities without subjecting them to pure torture for four consecutive days.